We've killed Quickbooks!

[oldhasbeen]

Oh joy - could really do without this, but we've hit the maximum number of items on QB and we're now stuffed. Apparently we're only the third UK business to have done ever this (really?! ) so a warning to you all who use QB!! There's absolutely nothing QB can do or will do (quel surprise!).

So having searched the options, it would seem at this point that our only option is Sage (according to them, there are no limits on the number of items - might have to get that in writing!). I've used Sage many, many moons ago, but I doubt that I'll remember any of it!

Has anybody else switched from QB to Sage (not necessarily for the same reason) - was it painful? - any pitfalls?

Presumably as we're already using Act Bus v.7, this will already have Sage link - is this easy to set up?

Obviously we've informed Actinic of the problem, but I doubt there's much they can do as QB are just stone walling so any advice much appreciated!

TIA - Helen

[chris ashdown]

Helen

Was this Orders or Products that reached the cut off limit?

What was the limit in numbers

Suggest you have a word with Paul Barker regarding Actinic - Sage line 50 as he has the knowledge I think you require, Forgot his company name but anyone at Actinic should be able to tell you or maybe this forums index

Found it "Greater Vision" try www.greatervision.co.uk

[oldhasbeen]

Hi Chris

Thanks for that.

It's the number of items on the stock list - it's a max of 14,500. We're also creeping up on the limit of 10,000 customers too!! And obviously we only found out about this when the need to know arose - it's not something they openly advertise!

You can't delete items or customers because of the audit trail - we're trying a few other things, but are not hopeful.

Considering QB states that they support small to medium size businesses up to 20 employees and $2m turnover, I'm rather shocked that they have imposed limits like this - what's it got to do with them how many stock items or customers we have?! And what clever **** decided on such an arbitrary figure - based on what, pulling a number out of a hat?!! Proves they don't know much about small businesses!

Anyway, if there is anybody with 1st hand experience of actually converting QB to Sage, any advice would be fantastic. If we find a miracle cure, I'll post it up!

[Mike Hughes]

Here's the QB limits on their website:

http://faq.quickbooks.co.uk/detail.p...buid=QBUK&cat=

I'm not so worried about the 14,500 limit on items (yet) but the 10,000 customers limit does seem to be a worry:

Total names: employees, customers, vendors, and other names combined: 14,500

Note: Any one name list can contain up to 10,000 names, but the name lists combined cannot exceed 14,500 names.

Mike

[kathynewman]

We switched from QB to Sage about 18months ago - was a bit of a nightmare but did it over a weekend - think ours was worse as we didn't do it at a year end so there was quite a lot of fiddling around to be done.

Sage is OK but to me does have some downsides - particularly in stock control - ie you can't see a realtime total of a product in stock as it doesn't get updated until the invoice has been updated which we don't do until it has actually been shipped - so this can be a bit of a pain.

Getting more used to it now but spent the first 6 months swearing a lot and threatening to go back to QB!

Just takes time to get used to something very different.

Kathy

[oldhasbeen]

Hi Mike

Yes we've seen the list now on the QB website - but considering they state their software supports small to medium size businesses with up to 20 employees and $2m t/o, would this be something you'd even think to go looking for prior to buying the software?

I'm not even sure this has always been on their website either - I've been on their FAQs page fruitlessly many times over the years, and they have changed their design several times - can't say this document ever jumped out at me before!

The big, big worry is that their limits include inactive records as well - if you make a customer, vendor or employee inactive, it still counts on the tally! You can't delete these records either because of the audit trail.

One option suggested is to open a new company file - export your data into excel and delete inactive records - then import into the new company file. That's OK for customers, vendors and employees but not OK for your item list as it zero's out all your stock control numbers.

So not only would you have to waste hours trawling through your records to delete inactive ones, you'd also have to manually enter your entire stock numbers once you'd imported the item list. And then ultimately you're only stalling the inevitable from happening again down the line - and the gaps in between will get shorter and shorter as your business hopefully continues to grow.

Eventually you'll hit the brick wall full stop where that truly will be it!

We're trying a few other options out at the moment to see if there's any other way - we're certainly not going down the suggested route of starting a new company file for reasons given above which would ultimately prove pointless.

We know this will affect other QB users eventually - we've spoken to one such person who is also a small business which has a heavy stock churn (same industry as us strangely enough!) and they're about to face the same problem - which is why I find the QB imposed limits farcical. If we were at the top end of the "comfortable" business size limits QB states to support, we'd already be in a position to have bespoke software anyway so this wouldn't be an issue.

QB can't even offer an upgrade product so you've got more capacity either which leads us to the conclusion that they've not really thought this through and are staggeringly behind the times of how a lot of small businesses operate in fast moving ecommerce environment.

Anyway, we're not going to waste too much more time on this - if what we're playing with at the moment doesn't offer any solution, it'll be time to switch camps. Will keep you posted!

Regards - Helen

[oldhasbeen]

Hi Kathy

Which version of Sage are you using? I'm sure the version we're looking at does handle real time stock control so will have to clarify that.

One thing I'm not sure about, is how does Sage handle your orders once you've imported them through link, if you are using your accounts package to generate sales receipts? We don't use real time payment processing because of the nature of our business, so at the moment on QB they're only really an "offer to buy" and don't become a confirmed sale until we've processed the payment. For this purpose in QB we've got a separate ledger to download orders to so the figures don't interefere with any "real" balances until the sale is confirmed.

Regards - Helen

[Mike Hughes]

Hi Helen,

I wasn't suggesting you'd missed the limits on the website, just linking to them to everyone else could see the details.

I agree wholeheartedly that this is a big problem for quickbooks as if they're disturbing me then then it's got to be a big problem for some of the other actinic users.

Mike

[oldhasbeen]

Hi Mike

No worries - but would anybody think to look for a document like this (which I don't believe has always been there in any event) considering QB's statement that they can comfortably handle small businesses up to the limits previously stated?

I certainly would not have thought to look for something like this unless I was already at the top end of their "comfort zone" and wanted to know if they could handle it.

If this can affect a business of our size which happens to be stock and customer heavy (we're up to 9,800 customers so we're about to hit that limit too), then I dread to think of the number of other QB users that this will affect - and obviously eventually it will affect them all unless they have very few new customers and stock items that rarely change.

Regards - Helen

[Miranda Stamp]

We moved from QB to Sage about 18m ago. Would've been sooner but migrating was a nightmare...till someone on here recommended Paul at Greater Vision. Lovely guy, great service and it worked brilliantly, very very easy. One phone call, sent him the info, he visited and it was done. Don't even bother trying it yourself, although there is a cost you will find in the long run it will save you time and money.

[oldhasbeen]

Hi Miranda

Thanks for that - will deffo bear Paul in mind for a chat if we decide to take the Sage route.

Which brings me to the next quandry - we're told by Sage that you can have unlimited products (and presumably unlimited customers!), but that you're limited to 60,000 transactions! We know of a company that hit this in 13 months and the programme seized up like QB!!

According to Sage, they know of companies that run far in excess of this number of transactions but after the QB fiasco, I'm inclined to believe an end user rather than a sales rep!

I've emailed Actinic directly regarding the QB situation and am hoping to receive a response shortly.

But where on earth do we go if we find that Sage is also going to have a major impact like this?!! If Actinic are only going to develop their link programme to run with QB and Sage, and both of these programmes have potentially disastrous limitations, then we're stuffed on Actinic as well!

So can any Sage users who also use the link facility confirm or deny this transaction limitation?

Thanks - Helen

[chris ashdown]

Is that for Sage simple accounts or for Line 50 the limit, There is also Line 100 for big companies I think

One way around your problem may be to treat all new customers as a cash sale, invoice them in actinic but transfer them to QB as a cash customer, that we you would be adding sales but not increasing the customer base

Or am I talking rubbish as I do not use QB

[Miranda Stamp]

We're not up to that number of transactions on there yet, but it sounds a bit low to me - we use Line 50 FC v10 ( which has real time stock control, the straight Line 50 doesn't). There is a bigger version (??MLM or MSM or something that actually calculates what you need to order and creates suggested PO for your approval as opposed to having to go & look at your product lines, had a quick demo of it).
Seems plenty of space on our Line 50FC and I'd have thought the limit must be higher than that. I would ring Sage or a Sage dealer like Uniq Systems 0118 9272700 and ask (we didn't buy from them but they're in our building and very nice people, we just pop upstairs and ask them if we have a query - or attend their breakfast demos if we want to know more about what's new - they feed you well!)

[oldhasbeen]

Hi all

We're looking at Sage L50 FC for the real time stock control function and 3 users - L100 is getting more into a bespoke system and "starts" from £ more than we could possibly afford, yet alone what it will end up costing (one supplier of ours spent £28,000...... ouch).

Something that generates PO's for your approval?? Sounds like a dream come true.... this has always been a real time waster - having to generate reports by vendor, writing down what you need, then manually inputting it all back in. It always struck me as bizarre that QB has all the information it needs to generate POs, but can't do it! Might have to investigate a bit more about this!

So far as I know, the 60,000 transaction limit applies to all the L50 products - I'm not sure whether if your close out your year end, this then resets it to zero - meaning the limit is "per year", or whether it means EVER like it does with QB limits. We're still waiting for our trial disc at the moment so have nothing to refer to and as mentioned, I won't take the work of a sales rep on commission (one told us they had customers with 1m transactions still running - and yet we've been told by an actual user that they did seize up at 60,000).

Chris - the customer "cash" sale is a good one and would get round that problem provided we never needed to look up a customer's history. Actinic's invoices are also pants - we have to do a lot of custom VATing to get Actinic to add things up properly for multiple buys, plus it does not handle back orders very well. The invoices look a mess (and would involve paying out for even more software to make them look right). But the main worry is the fact that we've hit the maximum number of items and there is no real solution to that problem.

Miranda - sounds like you've got it made - no purchase required, free support and getting fed to boot!!

Back to wearing my thinking cap......! Regards - Helen

[Miranda Stamp]

Helen, Uniq are great, they won't sell you anything if you don't need it. I can't think what the guy who I speak to's name is - we just mumble good morning in the corridor or car park every now and then, but could be Steve. I suggest you ring and say 'Miranda from downstairs with the nappies suggested I call you ' and ask the Qs you need to. Find them miles more helpful than Sage themselves, much more knowledgeable.

I think, on looking at it, the version that sorts the POs is called MMS http://www.sage.co.uk/productsandser...65&stid=131941

Or the alternative would be get a bespoke back office built for yourselves, I also know someone who specialises in that field if it helps.